How about getting rid of the Dept of Education. Talk about boondoggle.  If we didn't tax the people on a federal level people would HAVE that money to spend on a local level where there is a much better chance to oversee how the money is being spent.  Anyone go to a school board meeting lately.  How many school board meetings has Obama been to?

And by cutting NASA budgets and laying off both NASA and contractors you will be losing MORE tax revenue.  So who is going to pay for this?

As one who worked in a government office for a while, I can tell you that most government workers are only interested in sustaining it's own bureaucracy, let alone doing anything for the American people.

Thanks to government unions, they make sure their workers don't really need to produce anything except more red tape and idiotic rules.  

And before you government workers start braying and lying about it "not happening", I was there - I saw this go on.  It's why I'm not there any longer.

Last item: MSN diminished their credibilty a bit by quoting anyone from Daily KOS - there isn't enough tin foil for most of those people.

America is almost a 'has-been' and will be if we have Obama as a leader. Obviously he doesn't have what it takes to lead the country. America needs a leader who has a long term vision, not nearsighted.

Obama is foolish for cutting a wasteful program to build up our nation's education system?

First of all, to those saying this will go right into educational "bureaucracy" or teacher's unions haven't heard the first thing about his plan: he likes merit pay, or at least some form of way to get rid of bad teachers and encourage good ones. In other words, his plan isn't just throwing money in the DoE's direction, it's a complete reworking of the education system, starting with scrapping No Child Left Behind.

And shame on all of you, from the space bloggers to the people commenting here. You've got your education, so you're willing to scrap education for the useless achievement of going to Mars or settling the Moon. I'm sorry, those missions won't teach us anything but how incredibly hard it is to do these things. Meanwhile dropout rates in this country are higher than ever, our children's intellectual abilities are the laughingstock of the world, and you morons are saying Obama is the fool for ditching a useless program. Cutting NASA is the closest thing to pulling money out of thin air that can be achieved today.

Yes, America is in a sorry state today, because its people have forgotten that a wide swath of the population is being relegated to low-paying, dead-end jobs (and lives) because we can't fix the schools. Then a guy with vision, and courage, and ideas shows up, offers a way to fix them, and people decide they hate him because he's cutting expensive, wasteful education for a small group of scientists (billions of dollars for a few tidbits of information seems like a terrible deal to me) and funding everyone else's education.

MSN, as a media outlet you have a responsibility to inform your viewers/readers. And these people are clearly hopelessly uninformed. Please improve your coverage.

This is just more candidate pandering to the anti-science fundamentalist christians.  Taking this money away from NASA is not going to do anything to solving the educational problems of the US.  What will improve our educational system is attacking the issue of the neglectful families of the lowest performing US students.  When these children leave school and go home to several siblings who all have different fathers who are nowhere to be found, and single mothers who pass the children around from person to person whenever the children intrude on their lifestyle it negatively impacts their ability to learn. We should not expect their teachers to perform miracles when the lessons learned at school are not being reinforced at home, no matter how much money is given to "D" and "F" schools.  Another thing that would improve education would be to disentangle fundamentalist christians from the educational process.  Here in FL we are trying to improve our science standards but fundies are fighting it every step of the way.  We are all also familiar with the fundamentalist infested school board of Dover, PA and the lawsuit over teaching of intelligent design.    

I am very dissapointed in Obama!  He had my vote till this ludicrous idea!  Russia, China, Japan, India and a whole host of other countries are breathing down our necks in the space race.  We can not afford to play catch up!  Like it or not, space is our future.  So all you Bible-thumpers who say ignorant things like "Let's solve our problems on Earth first",  you need to pay attention to what the rest of the powerful countries have planned for the future.  Obama, you need to find somewhere else to cut funds, or you lost my support!

The Federal government should not be involved in education in the first place.  That is a state and parental issue.  NASA is a small small part of the budget, if you want to take money from someplace in the Federal budget bring the troops home from Korea or Germany.

Obama just lost any potential vote I might have cast for his presidency in the general election of '08.  There is no way I will support his election to office.  

6/10 of ONE CENT of every tax dollar we pay in Federal Income Tax funds NASA.  Surely NO ONE believes that by putting another 6/10 of ONE CENT of every tax dollar into education will suddenly make a difference.

Why are not more people asking where the other 99 and 4/10 cents of every tax dollar going?  This is a perfect barometric reading of why our country and society is in the place it is in.  

Obama's solution is to gut American R & D, and exploration.  

Just look at the history of countries whose government ended exploration - in EVERY case, they became a second or third rate civilization, and in all cases have never recovered.  Talk to the Chinese about burning ships in the harbors of China a thousand years ago. I am sure they would acknowledge the enormity of that mistake.

Here is a plan worth advocating:

1) Bring the troops home, and defend our sovereign borders ONLY

2) Put the country on a true war footing (anyone who truly believes our civilization is not at war for its survival is extraordinarily ignorant)

3) Shutdown immigration for the foreseeable future (close the borders IMMEDIATELY, and throw out illegal immigrants)

4) Set a goal of making the US energy independent of other nations in ten years, just as we did with Apollo and The Manhattan Project

5) Fund NASA to support R & D and exploration in tandem with US New Space efforts

6) Divert federal funds typically used to fight overseas wars into items 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

7) Set a ten year plan to pay off the national debt, and if a $25.00 per year Federal Excise Tax is required of each citizen, so be it.  We will be better off if we do it.

These steps will turn this country around and make it great again.  No bickering.  Either we stand together, or we will die together.  

As Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”  We must embrace his philosophy, and do it soon.

Obama and other candidates, regardless of party affiliation, that take the approach he promotes to solve American problems, will not get my support.

Leave space exploration funding in place and focus on cutting the military budget for use in education. The human race needs to look to the stars if it is to survive.

Its probably a lot easier for Obama to talk the talk cutting NASA's budget than it would be to walk the walk cutting entitlement programs in the states that he is campaigning in.

Why not just cut BOTH programs?  Both of them are just big-government boondoggles anyway....

There is no need for manned space flights at this time They are a waste of money that could be far better spent on robotic missions.

Under no circumstances should manned flights to Mars take place, for the next 50-100 years at least, to give us time to learn how to do it without permanently contaminating Mars with our biological waste.

I would far rather take money for increased science education from the military budget. The increase in scientific literacy would provide far more security for both our nation & the rest of the world than continuing to waste the vast amounts of money that we use to support the most expensive & powerful mercenary force in human history.

In fact, I would take a nice chunk of military money and use it to vastly increase the budget for robotic scientific space missions.

Let our grandchildren return to space once we learn how to do it right; and when we have practical missions that only humans could perform.

First off - based on this alone, Barack Obama will NEVER get my vote.  We wont even bring into the picture his plan to open free trade with Fidel Castro.

Second:  Worse than Obama is the person who posted this: Jon Ygn., OH
"The Nasa budget, (now some $16,000,000,000)is more than adequate."

Yes, $16 billion would be enough, if NASA was only supporting one program.  However, it is supporting ISS, Shuttle, Constellation, Aeronautics, and the unmanned programs.  The ISS, Shuttle and Constellation combined see only a little over half that budget.

"Silly talk about space tourism and colonization is just plain unrealistic."

The statement above is also probably pretty similar to the arguments made by those who believed the earth was flat and Columbus' journey was a waste of time.

"Nasa should concentrate on exploration to be sure. However this can and should be done with robotic spacecraft."      

While I like robotic missions, they sort of ignore the whole point of exploration.  What is the point of even robotic missions if your ultimate goal is not to colonize the planets?  Sounds to me like you just want funding for your "work project" but have no real vision for the future of humanity.  

Here's a thought...
Why don't we pay for education with money from (gasp) parents!
Instead of constantly giving additional tax breaks to people with children, how about letting them pay for the education their little brats need. Personally, I am really sick and tired of paying for everybody else's kids. I know, I know... now I'm gonna hear about how hard it is to make ends meet these days, blah, blah, blah... but if you can't afford to pay for all the costs associated with raising your kids (including the education), don't have children.
That's my opinion, and I'm entitled to it.

I agree with Obama.  Space needs to move into the private frontier. What benefit to America is going to the moon to pick up more rocks?  Non-manned missions can do this on the cheap.  Let the space tourists pay their own way. Our government needs to stop all of this wasteful spending and invest in our future here on earth. That is down to earth conservatism not outer space lunarcy.

Let me get this straight. Take money from one of the only major scientific programs around because there are kids that can't read or write. What science program will be around in this country for these "educated" children in the future? The Chinese are making a highly concerted effort to reach the moon. And a reformed Soviet Union(watch what happens closely in the next few years) flush with oil/gas monies, will make a huge effort to restate their claim as the greatest space power. There will be no space program in the US if Obama delays Constellation further. Take the monies wasted in Iraq, and use them to fund education and NASA properly.

With foreign nations working on catching up with USA vis-a-vis space, comments from presidential candidates like Obama are hardly welcome. The benefits derived from the Space Program over the years have been many.

The founding fathers of this country, who had more science in them than Senator Obama, would roll over in their graves if he is elected president and does carry out his plans. God help USA.

I like Obama, but I like space exploration, too.  NASA should be funded - although the Obama Administration, if it happens, should take a hard look at how NASA spends its money.  The USA should remain competitive in science and that is more about funding Research & Development than "Johnny can't read".  The main problem with Education is bloated administration and more money will not help solve that problem.  Put the teachers in charge of education, not bureaucrats.

I am saddened to see that Obama is willing to drain the NASA budget to do this.  It isn't like we can get corporations to cough up the parts, material, labor, and everything else for free or minimal cost.  It would be great if they would in the name of national pride (and part of the patent rights of new technologies created for this).  

This illustrates some of the problems with the country.  It is great that some people graduate high school and college.  The vast majority of the pop and hip-hop culture shuns education, reading, learning and working with authorities.  If there were many role models in the pop and hip-hop culture as well as sports figures that say that I am going back to school and getting a science degree for when I can't sell a record, throw a ball or make a great play.  Most of these people don't have foresight into what is needed.

What needs to be done is that corporations (science and health primarily) need to sponsor school (middle and high school mostly) science classes in all neigborhoods (rich and poor urban, rural and suburban).  Colleges can sometimes get endowments from alumni or corporations.  If these corporations had forsight, they would be investing in the local populations so there would be little concern about immigration policies changing due to wars or reactionary government policies.  

To quote a very recent article in the British publication The Register:

"A recent survey, carried out on behalf of The Space Review, has revealed that the average American believes a quarter of the country's public purse goes towards funding NASA.

"The survey found that most people reported the belief that NASA is almost as well funded as the military. The Department of Defense does receive roughly 21 per cent of the nation's wonga, but most people overestimated this by a further 12 per cent.

"In reality, NASA gets something like 0.6 per cent of the natonal budget, a fact which researchers report came as a surprise to those being surveyed. According to The Space Review, one participant replied "No wonder we haven’t gone anywhere!".

The survey formed part of a larger analysis of the costs and benefits of having a publicly funded space agency. The writers argue that people have scant knowledge of what NASA actually does. Combined with the huge overestimates of the cost of running NASA, it is not surprising that people often regard it as being poor value for money. ®"

This is consistent with what we in the U.S. space industry have found over the years.  People think we spend a lot more on NASA than we do, and they do not understand the vast strategic importance of being the only nation in the world that can do certain things.  Other nations, of course, are well aware of the stature that America has enjoyed because of its space prowess, with India recently announcing a DOUBLING of its space budget while U.S. politicians posture ways of plundering the technology engine that has driven our nation forward for nearly 50 years.

I agree with some of the above posts: Statesmanship, Leadership and Vision are required.  So far, we are not seeing much of these qualities from the presidential candidates as regards space.

I was considering voting for Obama.  But now, I am one small step away from joining the Clinton camp.  

wow, talk about stepping in a pile of doo, obviously he has no idea that other countries are not as nice as us and will militarize space as soon as they can, we should have a moon base already and be developing major laser, and conventional missle capability to end the constant aggression against resources and keep the peace. while it cannot be used in a ground war it can keep large countries from testing the water if large areas can be "baked" without ground intervention.

Busting the NEA and preventing the locals from controlling the school board elections would do a lot more for education that another $18B to pay for testing.

Obama lost my vote when he stood with he's hand's at he's side when the National Anthem was sang and everyone else had there hand's on there heart's where there supposed to be.

This is great, stick to welfare ball outs, criminal get out of jail free cards, and Amnesty programs for law-breakers Obama, you're out of your league (mentally) when it comes to any concept of our space program. The Champagne corks are popping all over Europe/Russia/China with that kind of talk. I bet campaign "donations" will increase ten-fold from those supporters. Let the states take care of education. Let the people who have kids pay for education. Leave the federal Gov't  out of it!

Ok I am listening, to all these negative posts, stating the Mr. Obama has no clue of what he's doing and how so many technological events were defined through space exploration. Sorry but people like Bill Gates didn't need space to change the way business are run. I don't need space exploration to determine my level of success, and I certainly don't believe that a 5 year delay is going to seriously do anything to ruin the lives of the poeple if there's a chance to provide better education. One thing that I am sure of is that NASA willnot be the only budget cut the Mr. Obama will make. I am sure the funding for the war will also be reduced. Apparently people don't understand that in many other European countries where their economies are blooming and education is fully affordable, their health care is affordable, don't worry about space as much as worrying about what serious issues we have at home. It was Mr. Bush being so concerned with our foreign policy that has caused of the greatest mistakes of several generations and now people actually think space exploration, and interstellar policy is far more important then our domestic policy. I would rather my kids go to college and become great citizens, then go to space to be an astronaut, any day.

If somebody can actually show me ANY benefits from the manned space program -- as opposed to the unmanned space program (and even ITS scientific benefits are seriously limited, especially where cost-effectiveness is concerned) -- I'll be happy to back it.  (Even Gerard O'Neill agreed that space industrialization -- assuming it turns out to be feasible at all -- should be mostly roboticized, with humans used for repair and maintenance only when absolutely necessary.)  Until then, I'll back Obama enthusiastically on this point.  

I may add that :

(1)  The doomsaying about the supposedly poor performance of the American education system is hogwash.  Read Gerald Bracey's analyses of those wildly misleading international comparisons, and the comparative studies showing little or not benefit from privatizing education.

(2)  The fact that we're flushing money wildly down the toilet in Iraq is irrelevant to the question of whether we're ALSO undeniably flushing it away -- albeit in much smaller quantities -- in the space program.

(3)  I'd enthusiastically support more spending on science and technology research in general -- we obviously need it badly for a multitude of reasons.  But that is hardly the same thing as saying that we should spend $16 billion a year on manned OR unmanned space exploration as opposed to other fields of scientific and technological research.  The time is long overdue to abolish NASA and redistribute its functions among the other branches of government, including NOAA, the EPA, the Pentagon, the Dept. of Transportation, and the National Science Foundation.  (Then sit back and find out how cost-effective the actual scientific community considers space science to usually be, compared to other forms of scientific research.  Answer: not at all, except with rare exceptions -- particularly in climate research and the other Earth sciences.)

Here is my idea, take the $450billion+ war in Iraq that we have wasted and put it towards education. I'm pretty sure that more than covers the 18 billion or so he wants to pump into education. And while we are on education, how bout actually employing teachers that care about their students. I have seen to many bad teachers that don't even care enough to see if the children understand before moving on. Now dont get me wrong there a lot of good teachers and I salute you for you put up with a lot, and half the time end up using your own money to get supplies that the school won't buy, but the bad teachers ruin it for the rest of you.

If Obama's intention is to shift manned space flight to the private sector, and provide robust support for entrepreneurial space flight, then I'd support his decision. The time when an elite few get to travel into space on my buck is over! Or should be. NASA failed on the promise of the Apollo program. Failed to deliver space flight to all humanity. It's time for the Rocketeers to take over.

So many people jumping at the focus on funding and the NASA angle on this. Have any of you actually read the Education plan linked in the article?

Would anyone here argue that that teachers are overpaid? The plan focuses on rewarding teachers who perform - it is not just blindly throwing money at the education problem as many comments seem to suggest.

The plan also recognizes that there must be a revived focus on math/sciences in the country. A little thought might reveal that this would be an investment in the future of our space program - as you increase the number of well-educated students, you somewhat exponentially increase the chance at breakthroughs in technology that could lead to a more efficient space program.

It seems like many of the comments here are from people that read "take money from NASA" and then immediately started typing out a response.

Personally I feel that Barack Obama should be applauded for this education initiative.  He is quite right when he says that there will be no engineers/scientists for exploration if education is not made a priority.  What like minded people such as ourselves should be doing is not disparaging this effort but instead providing constructive ideas for other sources of funding and even leveraging NASA as a tool to help further education.  Education is the most important investment we have and with out it we are lost!

Cheers

Obama is an idiot. How about he take his money from the war he claims to oppose instead of one of the only programs America still funds that provides any dreams/motivations to students to actually go into the sciences/engineering?

Obama, I realize as a priveleged adult, you have no concept of the realities of life, but students excel in math and science based on their motivation, not money. If you really care about increasing the numbers of America's scientists and engineers, you'd be thinking of ways to make the areas more exciting to children/young adults.

NASA has a piss poor budget as it is. That was a pretty pathetic sound bite from Obama about how if he doesn't take from NASA's budget there won't be any scientists and engineers to work there. Way to be extreme and dramatic. Oh, and a complete liar as well.

America's education system's problems have far less to do with money than it does to do with how it caters to building up a false sense of self-esteem in our children instead of an actual education.

Programs like NASA provide dreams and motivations. These are what propel students to go out and achieve irregardless of where they are from or what financial situations they find themselves in. All the money in the world does not replace an individual's drive.

In short, you are a fool Obama. I sincerely hope the flocks of anti-establishment followers you have continue to perform to past expectations and find themselves too busy discussing highbrow issues at brunch then actually going out to vote, because you are one of the last people I'd like to see in the White House.

Obama just lost my vote for good.  What a ridiculous proposal.  Hey Obama--what about crop subsidies?  What NASA returns for the piddly billions they get is incredible--do we not want a permanent base on Mars?  If so, the only way to get there is to go to the moon first.  What we need are MORE national projects--around space and energy independence--to get our young people excited about science again.  This is just another example of a mainstream politian being totally out of the loop.

Gutting NASA might be what Obama wants, but good luck getting that through Congress.  The founding fathers, in their wisdom, gave the President veto power, not the power to tell Congress what to do.

He might obstruct a strong, vital, and healthy NASA though, so he still won't be getting my vote.

I have to say that I still get goosebumps every time I watch a shuttle launch.  The awe of seeing 2 million kilos of machinery and fuel lob itself into orbit is a wonderful thing these days.  Not to mention the mars rovers which like a couple of old pickups keep doing their jobs and refuse to break.

When compared to the 50 billion congress is about to pump into the horribly depressing muck that is Iraq, even NASA's worst financial blackhole (the ISS) is inspiring.  

The disturbing lack of national ambition in today's presidential candidates is rather telling.  We, as a nation, need a challenge.  Let's be honest, 300bn a year in military spending has given us the capability to blow up anything on earth; except that we don't really need to.  

The cool thing about space flight, manned or robotic, is that it's cheaper, more fun and gets fewer people killed.  Thus I see no reason the government can't spare a billion or two for NASA.  Think of it this way, a space program is better than prozac for the mental health of our nation.

Yes, we do need to fund our schools, but we also need to think about the future of life.  With everyone living here on Earth, if a catastophic event occurs here, right now, we would not survive.  Spreading ourselves out in the solar system, and eventually, galaxy will ensure our survival.

If we keep putting on what needs to be done, there will come a time when we'll look back and say, "we should have planned better."  Let's not make the mistake of putting off important opportunities, let's explore, colonize, and prepare for the future now rather then later.

Our successes in space will inspire the future to learn.  One last thing.  The most important projects are always funded the least amount, let's reverse that!

I must say that I have shifted from Republican to Democrat after the tactics of our current president. I was even starting to find commonalities in opinion with Sen. Obama. However, I would have to say that his idea to take money from our space program and shift it into education is a poor way to win over the American public. He thinks that more will come from education if it has more money? Please, I am a teacher and I am familiar with some of the things needed to improve education. While we are underfunded and short-handed, just throwing money at the program will not help. We need to untie the hands of the teachers..kids lack discipline. On the NASA news, since space and science exploration have begun we have benefited as a nation. Take a look at what has come from the space program. It would be make much more sense to expand the space and scientific research programs than to cut their life line. We are going to take a back seat to the world again if Sen Obama gets his way. I suggest he reconsider where the funding should come from.

People also forget that not only does NASA explore space, but they also do medical experiments in space.  They map the Earth, they help find hot spots in forest fires, they help find evidence of global warming, and many other unmentioned items.

The Moon and Mars offer us new elements, minerals, fuels and other materials.  Education will continue, if funding isn't increased.  Kids who want to learn will learn, and even most who don't want to learn.  It is up to parents to help educate their children.  Teachers can't do it all, no matter how big their budget.

A gentleman above seems to think that going to college will make his children good citizens.  College isn't what it takes to be a good citizen, character is.  Bill Gates didn't finish college, I didn't either, but I still believe that we are good citizens.

Ax NASA and start over with space exploration, most of the technical skill has been backfilled with paper pushers and money sucking special interests. That agency can't even balance its books.

Of course, federal education programs are even worse!

What the country really really desperately needs is to start a NASA like commitment (race) to improve energy consumption efficiencies and alternative energy sources with the holy grail being fusion.  That could save us loads of money, save the environment, and set us up for the brightest possible future.

Manned space program is one of diminishing number of fields in which America is considered the world leader. It is, or should be, a source of great national pride at a time when the nation seems muddled. There are already signs that the US lead in spaceflight is begining to slip away, this new plan would throw it away. The nation needs to get behind NASA not abandon it.

YAY!  104 BILLION to land on the moon twenty years from now?  What an enormous waste of money.  What did the first moon landing cost?  Like six million bucks? Why does it cost so much more and take so much longer than it did in the sixties?  This is absolute regression.  Sit back and let private industries explore space- they won't piss money away the way our government will.  Barack, thanks for trimming some fat.  Now get us out of IRAQ!

We need to have a good demand for scientists and engineers in order to fuel the incentive for students to take the tough courses to qualify for that work.  Recovering an experience base is not something that happens a year or two or five after you decide you need it.  Every decision you make affects your option set down the road, this is one of the more critical and possibly the most foolish decision he could make.  Maybe this demonstrates his own experience level or lack thereof.  In any event, NASA's funding doesn't end up in a large bonfire.  Instead, NASA's funding is converted to product and services back to the government and the nation - and ends up helping drive local economies across the nation.    

Bruce Moomaw, Cameron Park, CA  said:  "If somebody can actually show me ANY benefits from the manned space program -- as opposed to the unmanned space program (and even ITS scientific benefits are seriously limited, especially where cost-effectiveness is concerned) -- I'll be happy to back it. "

[...] Let's see, let me take away your computer, your cell phone, your high speed internet, your satellite tv, your live around the world news and sports coverage just for starters.  Let me take these things away for a week and see you turn into a quivering ball of jello.  The benefits both direct and indirect of the space program that you see every day are large enough to fill an encyclopedia.  If it wasn't for the space race in the 60s, we would never have developed the technologies for all of those things I mentioned above.  While I am at it, I will add the breathing apparatuses used by our fire fighters and scuba divers as another important benefit.  I could go on and on and on.  How do you think your satellites got into space?  The ones that allow you to watch everything you want on tv, the ones that tell you what the weather will be like, the ones that run your GPS?   Do you think some poli-sci major got them there.  I don't think so.  The technology that allowed those satellites to be launched is a direct result of the space race.

I am all for improving education in America - but I don't think that destroying one of the most important branches of our government is the way to do it.  Especially considering that branch operates on a shoe string.


"(2)  The fact that we're flushing money wildly down the toilet in Iraq is irrelevant to the question of whether we're ALSO undeniably flushing it away -- albeit in much smaller quantities -- in the space program."

Ignorant, misinformed opinion about the space program, but opinion all the same.  Not fact.

"(3)  I'd enthusiastically support more spending on science and technology research in general -- we obviously need it badly for a multitude of reasons.  But that is hardly the same thing as saying that we should spend $16 billion a year on manned OR unmanned space exploration as opposed to other fields of scientific and technological research.  The time is long overdue to abolish NASA and redistribute its functions among the other branches of government, including NOAA, the EPA, the Pentagon, the Dept. of Transportation, and the National Science Foundation.  (Then sit back and find out how cost-effective the actual scientific community considers space science to usually be, compared to other forms of scientific research.  Answer: not at all, except with rare exceptions -- particularly in climate research and the other Earth sciences.)"

These are other organizations with their own agendas and their own goals and none of those organizations has any goals for exploration.  I would not recommend pludering NOAA the EPA or the NSF to bolster NASAs pathetic budget, so why should NASAs pathetic budget be plundered to bolster theirs?  Also, again with the misinformation.  NASA's budget may be $16 billion, but that budget is broken up into a multitude of programs which are all vastly underfunded.  Aeronautics takes a very large piece of that budget and it has nothing to do with either manned or unmanned space exploration.  And redistribute NASAs paltry budget to the Pentagon?  I know NASAs entire budget equates to about an hour of the Pentagon Budget.  I think the DOT budget also puts NASA to shame. [...]


Steve, Hartford, CT said:  "And shame on all of you, from the space bloggers to the people commenting here. You've got your education, so you're willing to scrap education for the useless achievement of going to Mars or settling the Moon. I'm sorry, those missions won't teach us anything but how incredibly hard it is to do these things. Meanwhile dropout rates in this country are higher than ever, our children's intellectual abilities are the laughingstock of the world, and you morons are saying Obama is the fool for ditching a useless program. Cutting NASA is the closest thing to pulling money out of thin air that can be achieved today."

Stevie boy, I got my education because I dreamed of working on the space program.  People have to have something to dream and strive for, otherwose, what’s the point.  I think our education is in a sorry state, but the government forcing more standardized tests is not going to solve anything.  Training students to pass those tests and forcing curriculums geared to those tests is a waste of everybodies time and money.  Come on, the only people I know who actually like their jobs are those who work for the space program.  People I know who work for the oil industry for example, bring home tons of cash but hate every second of their job.  Your contention that going to the moon taught us nothing is sad and pathetic.  You and everybody else needs to get over this ridiculous idea you have that NASA has a lot of money. It has no money.  It is so underfunded because of shortsighted politicians with agendas and the public's vast lack of understanding of that budget.  How come nobody blinks that we will spend $3 or 4 billion to build a football stadium, but $3 billion for the Shuttle program per year is considered a vast waste of money.  Andyou people say our priorities are wrong?  I guarantee nothing will happen on that football field that will do anything for mankind.  Yet nobody blinks an eye at that.  And who is footing the majority of th ebill when a new stadium is built?  The team owner?  No, it's the tax payers and the people who travel to that city (all those hotel and rental car taxes, where do you think they go).



"Yes, America is in a sorry state today, because its people have forgotten that a wide swath of the population is being relegated to low-paying, dead-end jobs (and lives) because we can't fix the schools. Then a guy with vision, and courage, and ideas shows up, offers a way to fix them, and people decide they hate him because he's cutting expensive, wasteful education for a small group of scientists (billions of dollars for a few tidbits of information seems like a terrible deal to me) and funding everyone else's education."

What are you talking about???? Expensive, wasteful education??? We got the same education as everybody else.  Then we went to college, where we paid for our own "expensive, wasteful education"  so how does that impact anybody else?????  So you are not only advocating destroying NASA, you are also advocating that nobody should go into science and engineering because it is "wasteful blah blah blah" - this makes no sense.  Cutting wasteful education for a smal group of scientists??? What world do you live in?  Where are "scientists" being trained and funded and the grade school and high school level???? Oh yeah - They ARE NOT!


M P, Bloomfield, NJ said:   "Ok I am listening, to all these negative posts, stating the Mr. Obama has no clue of what he's doing and how so many technological events were defined through space exploration. Sorry but people like Bill Gates didn't need space to change the way business are run. I don't need space exploration to determine my level of success, and I certainly don't believe that a 5 year delay is going to seriously do anything to ruin the lives of the people if there's a chance to provide better education. <snip>. Apparently people don't understand that in many other European countries where their economies are blooming and education is fully affordable, their health care is affordable, don't worry about space as much as worrying about what serious issues we have at home. It was Mr. Bush being so concerned with our foreign policy that has caused of the greatest mistakes of several generations and now people actually think space exploration, and interstellar policy is far more important then our domestic policy. I would rather my kids go to college and become great citizens, then go to space to be an astronaut, any day."

OK, first of all, are you willing to pay the European rate of income taxes??? Usually in the 50% neighborhood, with lower pay then us too.  Some countries the tax is even higher.  So funding health care and education and other things is relatively easy.  Secondly, ESA is very committed to space exploration.  BTW:  Space Exploration is part of our domestic policy.  Now that 5 year delay you remark on is about misconceived too.  That 5 year delay could very well destroy our space program.  Even if the program survived (and I am doubtful it would), how many 10s of thousands of jobs do you think will be lost?   Look at what happened in the 70s when Congress killed the Apollo program.  Texas and Florida and California were hit very very hard by job losses and recession.  How is this a good thing?   And what would you like your child to do after going to college?  What if your child's dream is to work on the manned space program.  Great, he just went to college... but now there is no space program for him to work on.  I'm sure he'll love you for that.  And those people going to space?  Guess what, they have degrees, typically they have multiple degrees.  Many of them have PhDs, because that is what it takes to be selected.  They study hard and work hard to get that opportunity.  And they did it with the same sorry education system that we all had.  People who want to learn and can learn, will learn.  People who don't want to learn, will not learn.  Nothing will ever change that.  It's not like we have a shortage of people in colleges and universities getting degrees and advanced degrees.

If we stop policing the world and spending hundreds of billions on the military industrial complex, we would have more than enough to fully fund NASA and education initiatives. We pay to blow up bridges in IRAQ, pay Halliburton to rebuild them, pay Blackwater to defend the workers building the bridges, (when they are not killing innocent civilians), and then we wonder why terrorists organizations are being bred in IRAQ?

Ron Paul will bring our troops home, permit local control of our schools (not the Department of Education bureaucrats), strengthen our borders, stop decay of the dollar, and he will come to realize a robust space program is a good defense of our country.

All other politicians will try to throw more money at the Education problem and try to start more unwarrented wars throughout the world. There is plenty of money right now if it is allocated better and smarter. Please check out Ron Paul's beliefs and ideas, you may like what you see. (www.RonPaul2008.com)

I bet if you give him the chance as President, he would rather pay for rockets to the Moon and Mars rather than for downtown Bagdad and Kabul. ((And soon Tehran if the warmongers have their way)). Let's stop the madness, vote for the right person for President--Ron Paul

Regardless of the questionable merits of Obama's proposal to cut NASA to pay for education, lets look at this from a November election perspective; NASA's biggest footprint for the Constellation Program is in Alabama, Florida, Colorado, California and Texas -gee, I wonder if those states will be crucial to winning? If this is any example of his thinking, his different approach to politics sure sounds like a losing one for November

Well,
I admire Mr. Obama's important opinion about education! As a space exploration advocate I am not thrilled at the idea of taking money from it. I think this might be a case where NASA and the other's involved could find some way to compromise.
  I was on the TIME web site earlier and he was concerned that the rest of the world is moving ahead of us in science education.
  Maybe if some of the money that was taken from NASA was earmarked for science education NASA could look at it as delayed gratification and in the end they get a new crop of excellent scientists by waiting?
          Dave Briggs

Senator Obama would do NASA a deep disservice by suspending a significant portion of its funding for 4+ years. NASA's full vision can only be achieved with a balanced portfolio of human and robotic spaceflight missions.  The vision suffers as soon as one or the other is under financed.  By example, recent shifts of priority from robotic to human spaceflight under Bush and Griffin (in support of Constellation) led to a significant reduction in more basic research at the agency, the scrapping of several exciting robotic missions, and unfortunately, a loss of very sharp people who could no longer pursue research in their hard-earned fields of expertise.  As in previous years for robotic missions, NASA is really gaining momentum towards Constellation and returning to the moon.  You can't keep a dedicated, well-oiled workforce in suspension while you go off and do other things.  People find other opportunities on other projects, agencies, academia or private industry.  Let NASA get its job done under its already meager budget, and inspire the next generations with its example.

With respect to education, until we change the culture of the USA, with its predisposition towards glitz, glamor, fame and material wealth over achieving pre-eminence in science, technology, humanities, the arts, etc, throwing money at our educational system will be a waste of money.  I only hope that the American people re-engage once they discover the US is  no longer at the top of the pile.

Our continued spending on our space program, whether it's to the moon, Mars or (I think even better) near-earth asteroids, is strategic to the United States. Other countries recognize that, why is it we don't have any leaders in the US that have any vision beyond the ends of their noses or our pocketbooks?

As an engineer I can tell you, if there aren't jobs to employ engineers, then our kids won't go into engineering. We'll have an "out-sourced" space program that doesn't benefit our economy, and a bunch of business majors and lawyers that will be "really useful" when we don't have any industries to employ them.

Wake up America !! This is important !!

To Jason from Louisville,

NASA had 3% of the national budget when we went to the moon during Apollo.

The current plan is to do it with less than 1% of the national budget.

Lunar outpost is exciting and will inspire the youth far more than feeding the education department bureaucracy.  NASA is an affordable and necessary re-investment in our country's engineering, science and technology bank account.  I wish more people would take a minute to look at the total budget and what is spent elsewhere.  Delaying Cx 5 years is essentially killing it.

Yeah, let's build up our nation's engineering and science brain base while we eliminate one of the few national programs for applying those skills.  Genius.

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